Tag: Wheel of the Year
“A secular spirituality from the seasons?”
EVENT: Sunday, July 9, 2017, 4-6pm at The Venue, 114 S Grant, Bloomington, Indiana This summer, join me for a community discussion on the question, “Can we derive a secular spirituality from the seasons?” Held at The Venue in Bloomington, Indiana, the event will be moderated by longtime local journalist Mike Leonard. Light refreshments will […]
Read More → “A secular spirituality from the seasons?”The Wheel as a Whole
For over a year I’ve been writing a series of short essays on a cycle of holidays, starting with the winter solstice. Now here we are again. I’d like to offer another short essay that attempts to tie these all together: Wheel Without End. With any luck, I’ll collect these all in a little ebook […]
Read More → The Wheel as a WholeStep into the Dark
A year ago I set myself a project, an experiment, a journey, a spiritual quest. I wanted to discover, uncover, delineate and define my religion. I wanted to deepen, strengthen, and integrate everything in my life. I wanted to live with greater intention. And I wanted it all to happen on a one-year schedule. It […]
Read More → Step into the DarkHappy (Belated) Lammas
We had a wonderful Lammas. It has emerged as probably my favorite holiday, which is kind of funny considering I never heard of it until two years ago. It’s taken a few weeks but I finally got some photos up. And as an unexpected bonus, we even have a short movie, which contains the very […]
Read More → Happy (Belated) LammasStep into the Light
Now we enter that half of the year where the days are longer than the nights. The equinox came this morning at fourteen minutes past midnight. I have to make an effort not to fixate on that single moment. I was asleep anyhow. Better to extend the celebration. The equilux was last Thursday here in […]
Read More → Step into the LightOne Full Revolution
Lammas is rapidly approaching. It was last year at Lammas that I began making an effort to observe each holiday in the Wheel of the Year with my family. Now that we’ve seen one full revolution of the wheel, I’m taking stock and reflecting on what it means. It’s my understanding that the Wheel of […]
Read More → One Full RevolutionSolstice
Tuesday was the Summer Solstice. I got up super early (4AM by my body clock, which was still in the Central Time Zone) and headed down to the beach. It was still pretty dark, but even at that early hour the eastern sky held a faint glow which grew stronger slowly, slowly, as I watched […]
Read More → SolsticeMay Day
See what you missed? Not to mention the maypole. This was our second May Day party. I enjoyed last year’s so much that I wrote, “I’m already imagining what it might be like to do it again next year.” So, boom, now it’s a tradition. In fact our celebration last year represented our first observance […]
Read More → May DayHappy Candlemas
I like to keep the old holidays. Well, some of them, anyway. I find old traditions fascinating, but I live in 2011, so whatever I chose to celebrate is through a modern filter. Anyway, here’s what I know about Candlemas. Some say the Christian observance of Candlemas originated with the notion that Mary was unclean […]
Read More → Happy CandlemasHappy Solstice
We exchanged presents to celebrate the Solstice. But when, exactly, does one celebrate? Is the Solstice a day or discrete moment? It’s both, I guess. This year the Solstice took place at 5:38 PM, Central Time. But that’s a matter of celestial mechanics. In terms of real human experience, it’s not a moment but a […]
Read More → Happy SolsticeDead Time
Over the last few weeks I’ve been fiddling with constructing my family tree on ancestry.com. (Thanks to my old high school friend Georgie for getting me hooked.) I managed to trace one line back as far as Torvild Ljøstad, my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great […]
Read More → Dead TimeConcrete Equinox
Our equinox celebration was a little chaotic, because the guys who are re-doing our driveway showed up somewhat unexpectedly to pour concrete. Nevertheless, we persevered. We had a few friends and neighbors over. I invented a simple cocktail of champagne, Sence rose nectar and wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. The flavor was probably more appropriate […]
Read More → Concrete EquinoxHappy Lammas
Happy belated Lammas or Lughnasadh or whatever else you may call it. (I guess it’s over now. I get confused with these traditional-style holidays that last from sundown to sundown, essentially extending into two days of our modern calendar.) This is a time, in the Northern Hemisphere anyhow, to celebrate the beginning of the harvest. […]
Read More → Happy Lammas